That Thing Around Your Neck

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Old Tie
by John Agard

A striped reminder
of the embers of empire.

*

A nostalgic neck-binder
for a post-colonial evening.

*

An emblem that divides
insiders from outsiders.

*

A prop for suicide
by way of strangulation.

*

An icon of Eton
worn even with the heat on.

*

A signifying signpost
to the nearest pubic station.

*

A crested spearhead
into male bonding.

*

A formal demarcator
of respect for the dead.

*

A diagonal entry
into the Royal Artillery.

*

A cross-sexual accessory
of gender-bending politics.

*

A Freudian substitute
for the umbilical cord.

*

A subliminal throwback
to the Neanderthal club.

*

In Nansi's motley wardrobe
the tie, on the other hand,

could be quite simply
a polka dot silk paddle

to row the sea of circumstance.

Three Miserable Thoughts for this Rainy Day

* When I heard a fuel-laden jeep had slammed into Glasgow airport with the intention of blowing up innocent passengers, my first thought was "terrorism". My second thought was "maybe they were aiming for the EasyJet counter".

* I borrowed a compilation of Bukowski's poems from the library on Saturday. I found a cinema ticket stub inside the book, for the movie Brokeback Mountain. The person went to see it at Cineworld Cinema, on the 10th of January 2006 (the ticket stub survived next to Bukowski's poems for one year and five months). They saw the movie at 14:45 and paid £5.80 (matinee price - was he/she a student? an impoverished poet?) The person paid in cash. The ticket stub is now glued to my paper journal.

* I wonder if this boy knows how popular he is on YouTube. He must be an adult by now (probably working in I.T.)